A few scattered tidbits milling around in my brain, since I cannot seem to sleep... even though it's almost 2:00 a.m. in Beirut.
When I flew into Frankfurt yesterday (Sunday), the daylight afforded a view I don't remember having the last time I traveled by way of Germany: scattered all around were little towns made up almost solely of white houses topped with terra cotta-colored roofs. And the farmland came right up to the edges of the towns on all sides, such that the residential plots appeared to be dropped out of the sky like the farmhouse that did in the Wicked Witch of the West. I'd love to visit Germany sometime in earnest, because while the Frankfurt airport offers enough exotic flavors of Haagen-Dazs to keep me occupied for an hour or two (i.e. macadamia nut crunch and Bailey's!), I bet there's a lot more to Germany than ice cream. Well, maybe nothing better than ice cream, but at least additional somethings. Like maybe other types of dessert. Have I ever mentioned that, thanks to my Grandma Haines, all of my teeth are sweet tooths (some would say teeth, I suppose)? Well, it's true.
I already mentioned this in an e-mail to a friend, but riding into Ras Beirut (the area in which AUB and other locales kept alive in my summertime memories are located), chatting with the taxi driver about my travels, I had this comfortable feeling that resembled something of the sentiments of a homecoming. It is really mind-blowing how a place can wedge its way into the fibers of your being, even if you only spent about two months in that place -- and two of the most difficult months of your academic career, at that. Perhaps Lebanon has meant more to me because I studied it more thoroughly than any other place I'd traveled in the past, and in advance of the trip. But I don't think that accounts for all of the passion I feel for this place. There's something very special about Lebanon for me, and I can't explain all of it. I don't doubt that part of the impact can also be attributed to my own life's circumstances: I'm falling in love with a new setting for adventures at just a time in my life when I've really become assured about what enthralls me. Lebanon is the stage for some bit of exploration of myself, of what I can accomplish on my very own efforts alone, of what I can make a part of my life perhaps more permanently if I make the right choices.
I am constantly humbled by the accomplishments of women who beat me to the punch. I am a 24.5-year-old woman, and I just traveled thousands of miles around the world by myself. I am lying under a down comforter in a hotel room in Beirut all by myself. And tomorrow morning I venture out into the city to conduct research. Research on a very small scale, research of a novice by every measure. But I'm doing it by myself, with no travel companion save my camera. Isn't it something what women can do, what women can do today that they couldn't do so easily even 20 years ago? I am grateful to the women who saved me so much trouble by insisting that their gender didn't dictate the limits of their capabilities. My own mother can remember a time when she wasn't permitted to wear pants to public school. The same mother who wrote letters for NOW in the '70s. I can be here on my own because of the sacrifices of both of my parents, and because of the persistence of women who had the same aspirations I can now pursue with greater freedom, with passion and abandon.
"have you ever wandered lonely through the woods / everything there feels just as it should / you're part of a life there, you're part of something good / have you ever wandered lonely through the woods"
When I flew into Frankfurt yesterday (Sunday), the daylight afforded a view I don't remember having the last time I traveled by way of Germany: scattered all around were little towns made up almost solely of white houses topped with terra cotta-colored roofs. And the farmland came right up to the edges of the towns on all sides, such that the residential plots appeared to be dropped out of the sky like the farmhouse that did in the Wicked Witch of the West. I'd love to visit Germany sometime in earnest, because while the Frankfurt airport offers enough exotic flavors of Haagen-Dazs to keep me occupied for an hour or two (i.e. macadamia nut crunch and Bailey's!), I bet there's a lot more to Germany than ice cream. Well, maybe nothing better than ice cream, but at least additional somethings. Like maybe other types of dessert. Have I ever mentioned that, thanks to my Grandma Haines, all of my teeth are sweet tooths (some would say teeth, I suppose)? Well, it's true.
I already mentioned this in an e-mail to a friend, but riding into Ras Beirut (the area in which AUB and other locales kept alive in my summertime memories are located), chatting with the taxi driver about my travels, I had this comfortable feeling that resembled something of the sentiments of a homecoming. It is really mind-blowing how a place can wedge its way into the fibers of your being, even if you only spent about two months in that place -- and two of the most difficult months of your academic career, at that. Perhaps Lebanon has meant more to me because I studied it more thoroughly than any other place I'd traveled in the past, and in advance of the trip. But I don't think that accounts for all of the passion I feel for this place. There's something very special about Lebanon for me, and I can't explain all of it. I don't doubt that part of the impact can also be attributed to my own life's circumstances: I'm falling in love with a new setting for adventures at just a time in my life when I've really become assured about what enthralls me. Lebanon is the stage for some bit of exploration of myself, of what I can accomplish on my very own efforts alone, of what I can make a part of my life perhaps more permanently if I make the right choices.
I am constantly humbled by the accomplishments of women who beat me to the punch. I am a 24.5-year-old woman, and I just traveled thousands of miles around the world by myself. I am lying under a down comforter in a hotel room in Beirut all by myself. And tomorrow morning I venture out into the city to conduct research. Research on a very small scale, research of a novice by every measure. But I'm doing it by myself, with no travel companion save my camera. Isn't it something what women can do, what women can do today that they couldn't do so easily even 20 years ago? I am grateful to the women who saved me so much trouble by insisting that their gender didn't dictate the limits of their capabilities. My own mother can remember a time when she wasn't permitted to wear pants to public school. The same mother who wrote letters for NOW in the '70s. I can be here on my own because of the sacrifices of both of my parents, and because of the persistence of women who had the same aspirations I can now pursue with greater freedom, with passion and abandon.
"have you ever wandered lonely through the woods / everything there feels just as it should / you're part of a life there, you're part of something good / have you ever wandered lonely through the woods"
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